Sunny Side Up Nutrition

A cooking, nutrition and family feeding blog to simplify your life

Elizabeth

Keep it Simple! 3 Quick and Easy Meals

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I can’t believe Thanksgiving is next week! I love this time of year. We’re looking forward to getting together with family and friends as always. However, life gets so busy during this season. There’s shopping for gifts, parties, activities, travel and holiday shows – It’s all so much fun, but it can all feel overwhelming if I don’t take the time to plan and keep meals simple. We don’t want to eat out most nights, which is what happens if I try to wing it. Plus, making dinners allows for leftovers for at least a couple of lunches each week.  

At the end of the day, as Anna highlighted in her most recent post what you eat for dinner isn’t what’s most important.  It’s the meaningful time you spend connecting with your family.  

Here are 3 quick and easy meal ideas you can rely on through the holiday season. I’m also going to use Anna’s printable meal planning template (sign up at the top of our blog to receive it) along with a couple of other go-to meals I wrote about last spring to simplify meals.  

Sausage (vegetarian or meat) with sweet potato fries and sautéed brussel sprouts

30 minute meal

I tend to buy this Neiman Ranch Sweet Italian Sausage. All four of us really like it. If it’s a vegetarian option you’re after, the Field and Stream sausages are quite good.  Shaved or shredded Brussels sprouts are a favorite in our house.  Everyone loves them, there’s no prep work and they cook in less than 10 minutes!  When I can’t find shredded Brussels sprouts, I buy them whole and run them through my food processor with the grater blade.  If I know I don’t have time for that extra step, I’ll cook a frozen vegetable I have on hand.

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Lentil Salad with Feta Cheese and Salami

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Easy Lentil Salad

HI. Elizabeth, here.  It’s been so warm and humid here in the DC area, it’s hard to believe it’s mid-October.  I love fall and am looking forward to some cool, crisp days like today.

This Lentil Salad with Feta Cheese and Salami is just the recipe for still-warm fall days. It’s also hearty enough for cool days.   As I mentioned in a recent post, these Trader Joe’s Steamed Lentils are one of my favorites.  You can typically find them in the refrigerator case on a top shelf above the vegetables.   In our house, we use them either cold in a salad like the one below or heated and served with rice and some grated cheese.  My friend, Amanda adds caramelized onions and rice to them.

This recipe is so easy!  It really only takes a few minutes to make.  I love to have it for lunch on mixed greens. It also makes a nice side dish.  This salad is one of those items my kids still haven’t tried, but I keep offering it. If you have toddlers, preschoolers or even young elementary age kids, you might offer this salad deconstructed.  They’re likely to be more receptive to the individual ingredients.  And remember, even if your child doesn’t try a food after seeing it many times-don’t give up.  They might just try it eventually.  When they do, you’ll want to jump up and down and cheer, but resist the urge.  As hard as it is not to cheer, remaining neutral creates a low pressure environment for trying new foods.

Lentil Salad with Feta Cheese and Salami

Easy Lentil Salad…

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What’s For Lunch?

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Elizabeth, here.  I hope you had a chance to read Anna’s recent post about the importance of eliminating diet talk from schools. And did you see our new resource to share with teachers and coaches?  It makes it so easy to reach out and share your beliefs about food with anyone who works with your children.

Has everyone settled into the new school year?  If you’re anything like me, it’s the time of year you get stuck in the lunch-making-ho-hums.  I don’t love packing lunches and get tired of it pretty quickly!  As a way to prevent the ho-hums and mix things up a bit, I thought I’d share a few more ideas for quick and easy lunches to add to the LUNCH LIST.  

What’s For Lunch?

Leftover Pizza, Clementines and Homemade Oatmeal Craisin Cookies

Lunch Leftover Pizza, oatmeal cookies, clemintines

A teenager or older child would likely need at least two slices of pizza depending on the slice size.  (These are actually quite small. I had to cut this piece of pizza in two to fit it in the container).  Or add a Greek yogurt or some trail mix to lunch if there’s only one slice per older child.  For younger children, make a hole in the top of the clementines to make it easy for littler hands to peel them, or just peel them before putting them in the lunchbox.  

Leftover Pizza, oatmeal cookies and clementines

I love these Sistema lunch cubes as I mentioned here a few weeks ago.  They have plenty of room for a full lunch.  And the fact that the container closes between sections means less likelyhood the pizza or cookies will taste like clementines and vice versa.

Sistema Container

My youngest loves leftover pizza for lunch!  This makes me happy because it’s so easy and it really satisfies her.  …

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Our Favorite Lunch Packing Supplies

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Hi!  Elizabeth here with a quick post about our favorite lunch packing supplies.  We wanted to share these to make packing lunches a little easier for you, too.  And as I mentioned recently, I enjoy seeing everyone’s back-to-school photos and I said I’d share mine.  Here they are!  The pictures are separate because one of my daughters (14) went back to school last week and my other daughter (11) went back to school this week. 

First day of school

Back to schoolBack to school

 

 

Our favorite lunch packing supplies

Since school is back for everyone now, many of you are likely back to packing lunches.  Last week I posted 3 quick, easy, back to school lunches   Here are the lunch packing essentials that work best for us. They’re good sizes.  They aren’t too hard to open – very important for younger children especially.  And they don’t leak!

A 10 oz size Thermos works well for to keep food warm or cold for younger children. And a 16 oz size works well for food for older children.  

 

A 12 oz cold beverage container works well for younger children and a 16 oz size works well for older children.

 

Plastic and glass containers

This Sistema container holds a sandwich and still has plenty of room for other lunch items like cookies, fruit and some chips.

Favorite lunch containers

I use these long narrow Rubbermaid lunch containers for items like slices of cheese, grapes, 1/2 an avocado, apples, carrot sticks, crackers and small cookies. The larger, square containers are great for sandwiches. The ice blocks are handy for keeping items cool. I admittedly don’t use the ice blocks very often.

I really like these glass Pyrex storage containers.  They’re useful for packing lunch and storing leftovers.  I tend to use the small rectangular containers for foods like fruit or chips, or avocado. The larger square containers I use for for salads. I like the larger ones for reheating lunches Chad and I take to work. The small round containers are good for smaller sides like nuts, nut butters, and dried fruits.

My 14 year old told me this evening that the containers I’ve been using for dressing actually leak!  And I thought all this time they didn’t.  Oops!  Caroline and Ellie empty their lunch boxes and rinse out the containers when they get home (with a few reminders).  I guess that’s why I didn’t know about the leaks.  I’m going to give these Sistema dressing containers a try.   Do you have salad dressing containers you’d recommend?

Baggies, straws and utensils

I remember when these reusable baggies first came out.  They were a big hit!  I will admit, I do use plastic baggies sometimes.  There are times when the reusable baggies are all dirty or there’s a field trip and we’re asked to send lunch in disposable containers.

 

We use paper straws since they’re biodegradable.  We also have reusable straws in some of our cold drink containers.

For reusable utensils, I use some old stainless steel flat ware from Ikea, but these Seitsema utensils work well too.

The lunch box

And finally, a good lunch box or bag  to pack everything in is a must.  I really like neoprene lunch bags because they stretch.  It makes packing lunch easier.  You won’t have to worry whether or not we have the right size containers.

]Favorite lunch packing suppliesFavorite lunch packing supplies

What are your favorite lunch packing essentials?  Stay tuned for more quick and easy lunch ideas coming soon!

*This post contains affiliate links.

3 Favorite, Easy Back to School Lunches

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I love seeing all the back to school pictures this time of year!  (I’ll post a back to school picture once both kids have gone back to school.)  I can’t even believe it, but our 14 year old started high school on Monday.  Naturally, I’ve been thinking about what to pack for school lunches.  I settle into making the same lunches pretty often. I’ve definitely done that this summer.  So, I thought I’d start the school year off with some lunch ideas to share over the coming weeks. Hopefully, these will also be helpful to you and your family!  In the midst of all this meal planning, don’t forget to think about meals and snacks for yourself, too. 

Lunch, like all other meals and snacks doesn’t need to be perfect! There’s so much pressure to feed ourselves and our kids in some perfect way. At my house, the containers we use don’t match and I sometimes use plastic baggies. And my kids will eagerly tell you I’ve been known to forget to put things in their lunch bags, like utensils or even food. At some point last year, I got a text from Caroline during the day with a picture of the empty Thermos I put in her bag.  I forgot to add the food!  

3 Easy Lunches

One of the easiest lunches for me to pull together is lentils, rice and grated cheese.  I love these Trader Joe’s Steamed Lentils!   You can heat them or serve them cold (recipe for a lentil salad coming soon). All you need is some extra rice, or buy precooked, frozen rice to mix with the lentils and a little salt. I heat the Thermos by filling it with boiling water from our electric water kettle.  You can also use hot water from the tap. Screw the lid on the thermos and let it sit while you make lunch. Heat the mixture for 1-2 minutes on high in a microwave safe dish. The time will vary depending on your microwave. Remove it from the microwave and stir in about a 1/4 c grated cheese. Empty the hot water from the thermos and add the heated lentils, rice and cheese.

Easy back to school lunches…

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Our Annual Corn Fest – Another Family Tradition

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Summer Corn

Elizabeth here.  Anna’s most recent post suggests low pressure ways to introduce children to foods.  One of those is cooking with children.  Our family’s Annual Corn Fest provides just such an opportunity.  It’s another family tradition and an opportunity to gather multiple generations.  And it’s also FUN!  

What a Job!

I won’t forget the time my father-in-law told us about one of his jobs as a child growing up in Eastern North Carolina.   Because he was always so tall, he had a job walking through the rows of corn and opening the pods (anthers is the actual term) on top of the stalks to distribute the pollen they contain. Who knew there was ever such a job?!  And a little plant biology – the pollen fertilizes the silks. There has to be a fertilized corn silk for each kernel of corn to develop on the cob. Fascinating! …

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Peel N’ Eat Shrimp – A Family Beach Trip Tradition

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Peel N' Eat Shrimp

Anna and I both happened to be at the beach last week (different beaches).  Relaxing at the beach took me back to the food we ate during our annual trip to Emerald Isle, NC with dear family friends.  We had some sort of fresh seafood most nights, and my mom often made peel n’ eat shrimp.  That’s one of Anna’s family beach trip traditions too!  

As I watched my children and their cousins laughing and diving and jumping waves, I found myself reflecting on Anna’s most recent post  An Open Letter to My Daughter’s Camp Counselor.  When we focus on what not to eat or what we think we are supposed to eat, or weight loss; we miss out on life.  Instead of enjoying connecting with friends and family, we are distracted.  Food provides opportunities to create meaningful connections, traditions and memories.

Peel N' Eat Shrimp

Peel N’ Eat Shrimp

Anna and I each make peel n’ eat shrimp a little differently. I make it the way my mom did: by seasoning the water with some veggies, salt and lemon.  Anna’s family cooks the shrimp in unseasoned water.  I love this!  It doesn’t get any easier!! We had cocktail sauce my mom made by mixing horseradish into ketchup.  I think we also had plain ketchup for those who didn’t want any spice.  Anna’s family sets out horseraddish and ketchup to allow everyone to make their sauce as spicy or mild as they like.

I’m so glad I made peel n’ eat shrimp when I was at the beach!  WHY don’t I make this for dinner at home sometimes??? It’s SO EASY!  And the smell of the water as it came to a boil with plenty of salt, celery, carrot, onion and some fresh, flat leaf parsley took me back to heart warming memories of our yearly trips to Emerald Isle.  

Another method is to roast it in the oven instead of boiling it. I’m definitely going to try that soon! 

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More Summertime Snacks

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Elizabeth here with more summertime snacks.  Greetings from beautiful Chautauqua, NY!  My family is on vacation in one of our favorite places.  We rent the same place each year.  And that means we’re cooking most meals and snacks.  There’s a day camp here at Chautauqua that Caroline (14) and Ellie (almost 11) have been going to since they were each 3 years old.  It’s called Boy’s and Girl’s Club for the 2nd-10th graders.  When my girls get home from Club around 4:00 pm (for the younger kids, camp ends at 12:00), they are often super hungry, because they’ve spent the day kayaking, sailing, canoeing, swimming, playing field games, doing arts and crafts, etc.  There’s a break from 12:00 – 2:00 pm when kids go back to their house, inn or hotel for lunch and to usually relax and swap their wet swim towel and bathing suit for dry ones.  Ellie especially loves to swim. So, once she’s back from Club, she refuels and we head out for more swimming in the lake.  Or, we grab some snacks to take with us.  These days Caroline enjoys spending her late afternoons reading on the porch.

I thought that these couple of weeks that we are away would be a great time to introduce some new snacks.  Anna’s recent post 5 Snack Tips For Kids (And Adults Too!)  is such a great reminder to offer new foods at snack time.  My plan is to continue offering new summertime snacks to my girls throughout the summer.  Here are 3 more snack ideas to add to those from my post On-The-Go Summertime Snacks.  I also plan to offer some new foods so we can add to our lunch rotation – but that’s another post.

Hard boiled eggs, bread and blueberries

Easy summertime snacks

Hard boiled eggs with some bread or crackers and fruit or a fresh veg is one of my favorites.  It’s so easy.  Don’t forget a little salt for the eggs.  In the summer especially, I like to keep a batch of hard boiled eggs in the refrigerator.  These eggs here are a little shy of hard boiled, but the texture of the yolk is just right for my taste. I didn’t mean for them to be a little under hardboiled, but I sometimes forget how long I cook them.  It’s typically 17 minutes.  I must have only done 16 this time.  Or maybe I turned the heat off under the pan a little too soon.

To make hard boiled eggs, place the eggs in a pan of cold water.  Be sure not to crowd the eggs in the pan.  They do better with a little space around them.  Place the pan on the stove and turn the burner to high.  Keep an eye on the water.  Once it comes just to a boil, turn off the burner, remove the pan from the burner and place a lid on the pan.  Set the timer for 17 minutes (or 16 if you want them to look like the eggs in the photo).  In the meantime, fill a bowl with ice cubes and water.  Once the 17 minutes is up, immediately remove the eggs from the hot water and place them in the bowl of ice water for 10-15 minutes.  Then remove them from the cold water and store them in the refrigerator.

Tatziki, green beans, tomatoes and crackers

Summertime Snacks Tatziki, Veggies and Triscuits

We typically eat tatziki (cucumber, yogurt dip) with pita chips and carrots.  I decided I’d try offering it with what I had around which was green beans, cherry tomatoes and Triscuits.   No one tried it the first time, but I’ll keep offering this new combo.

Graham crackers, goat cheese and strawberry jam

Summer Time Snacks Graham Crackers with Goat Cheese and Jam

I love graham crackers (and also those Carr’s wheat crackers that are like grown up graham crackers).  I love them with any nut butter (or sunflower seed butter), with Nutella or topped with goat cheese and strawberry or sour cherry jam  – but whatever jam you like will work!  This is a combo I often recommend to clients, but haven’t offered at my house very often.  Time to reintroduce it!

Lastly, I’ve finally gotten our snack download finished.  Yea! I’m including it here. A list of 15 Simple Summertime Snacks and Snack Tips to take the stress out of snack time. 

We’d love to hear what your favorite summer time snacks are!  If you make any of our recipes, we’d love it if you let us know how they turn out by commenting and/or rating recipes.  If you take a photo of what you make, you can tag us on Instagram.  Thanks for reading and for your feedback.

On-The-Go Summertime Snacks

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Hi!  Elizabeth here!  Anna and I were recently brainstorming about our next post ideas and summertime snacks was one she mentioned.  It got me thinking that I’ve fallen into a bit of a snack rut of late. I’ve been offering prepackaged, peanut butter crackers A LOT lately. (Nothing wrong with prepackaged, I just haven’t been offering enough variety).  Our mouths and brains get tired of the same old same old.  As Anna talked about in he post Variety – It’s Not Just About Fruits and Veggies, our bodies and minds need variety.

And we also need snacks!  With the transition to trips to the pool and the summer weather, it’s time to bring on some new snacks!…

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Black Bean Taco Soup

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Black Bean Taco Soup Recipe

Hi!  Elizabeth here.  Thanks for stopping by!  I’ve been thinking a lot about Anna’s post about food rules  from last week.  So many of our clients come to us with a lifetime of unhelpful, rigid rules around food.  A big part of our work is guiding them to establish new, flexible, useful rules or guidelines.  Like Anna, I had similar, unrealistic rules about food when my girls were very young. Those rules about organic, local, in-season, etc, etc were impossible to follow without feeling like my head was going to spin off!  Thankfully, I have greatly relaxed those rules.

One guideline I use now is that I don’t have to make everything we eat.  I love to cook, and most food cooked at home tastes better than what you buy at the store. But we can’t live with me trying to cook everything!  I remind myself and my clients that it’s completely fine to buy pre-made, pre-packaged foods.  All meals aren’t meant to be made from scratch with a LOOOOONG list of ingredients.  I encourage clients to ask themselves, “what can I fix to eat that isn’t complicated and that will meet my (or my family’s) nutritional needs?”   Life is often hectic and we need guidelines to help us find balance in our lives – including with food….

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